The Secret Isn’t in the Sauce

It’s time to take off your floaties and do more than follow your passion.  If you’re trying to figure out what career to pursue or how to make the biggest difference in this world, you’re going to be searching for a long time.

The secret is that no one area of concentration is magical, all-knowing or more important than the other. The architect can design the house, but without the brick layer–it’ll never get built. Making our world better takes a multi-disciplinary network of individuals, communities, organizations and talents. Your passion only gets us so far. So stop searching and start doing.

Before You Eat Your Breakfast

Go. Don’t put if off any longer or wait until “you have it all figured out” to cultivate your talents, expand your knowledge, build connections and move plans forward. Albert Einstein once said “success is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration.” In other words, ideas inspire but execution leads to impact.  How are you going from dreamer to doer?

Make the Leap

Traditional models for change are not keeping pace with today’s challenges. The remedy? “Be fearless,” says the Case Foundation. To help you move from dreamer to doer to achiever, they suggest adopting a five step mantra:

  1. Make big bets and make history.
  2. Experiment early and often.
  3. Make failure matter.
  4. Reach beyond your bubble.
  5. Let urgency conquer fear.

Is there room for more bravery in your mission? Let it marinate. When you’re ready, consider making the “Be Fearless” pledge.

Once you know fearlessness, it’s easier to recognize. You may even decide to nominate a Fearless Changemaker who has touched your life in the Case Foundation’s Finding Fearless competition which offers $650k in prizes and awards. In a guest post written for Marketing for Change, I share Laura Vandekam’s research on what successful people do before breakfast. Some additional motivation may also be found in the Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki, Making Things Happen by Scott Berkun, Rework by the founders of 37 Signals and Echoing Green’s Work on Purpose resources.

 


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2 thoughts on “The Secret Isn’t in the Sauce


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    Jacque Myers

    Thanks Alex! I really needed to read this post, both personally and professionally. The million dollar question for me is, “How do we convince our leaders and clients to take the risk?” With leaders who have experienced historic examples such as “This is your brain on drugs” and risk-adverse clients, it’s hard to get past “best practices” and “proven methodologies” to try something new.


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      Alexandra Bornkessel

      Hi Jacque – Happy to hear the post resonated (and great question)! My husband often helps me by encouraging me to take a step back from the situation. It’s easy when you are passionate about something to focus on the one or two barriers in front of you. However, when you take a step back and get in a positive mindset, you can often find a few creative ways to get to your end goal.

      I also find the old saying of “show don’t tell” is helpful too. We had an infographic project that some were nervous about–so rather than spending time on the front end talking about the visual hierarchy or what to highlight, we mocked up a prototype. I also started collecting health infographics on Pinterest (http://pinterest.com/socialbttrfly/health-infographics/) to help with brainstorming and found it also helped with other client projects too.

      You can do it!

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